The Door

Creativity requires a state of grace. So many things are required for it to succeed.

I know now, what I didn’t then, that affection can’t always be expressed in calm, orderly, articulate ways; and that one cannot prescribe the form it should take for anyone else.

Nem látja, hogy rám hiába villog, nekem senki se kell, aki nem tökéletesen az enyém? Maga mindenkit berakna egy dobozba, aztán mikor ki kell, azt veszi elő, ez itt a barátnőm, ez az unokatestvérem, ez az öreg keresztanyám, ez a szerelmem, ez az orvosom, ez a préselt virág Rhodosz szigetéről, na, hagyjon engem békén. Ha egyszer nem leszek, majd nézzen ki olykor a temetőbe, az elég, ha nem vállaltam azt az embert barátnak, mert férjnek óhajtottam, maga se játssza itt nekem azt, hogy maga az én meg nem született gyermekem.

She was lonely. Who isn't lonely, I'd like to know? And that includes people who do have someone but just haven't noticed.

We were both wrong: she who put her faith in me, and I who thought too well of myself.

Creativity requires a state of grace. So many things are required for it to succeed—stimulus and composure, inner peace and a kind of bitter-sweet excitement.

She also demanded of me that, in my art, it should be real passion and not machinery that moved the branches. That was a major gift, the greatest of her bequests.

God usually ignored us when asked for something, but he invariably granted what we feared.

Once again her face changed. She was like someone standing in strong sunlight on a mountain top, looking back down the valley from which she had emerged and trembling with the memory still in her bones of the length and nature of the road she had travelled, the glaciers and forded rivers, the weariness and danger, and conscious of how far she still had to go.

Emerence was spontaneously good, unthinkingly generous, able to reveal her orphaned condition only to another orphan, but never giving voice to her utter loneliness.

I was still rather young, and I hadn't thought it through, how irrational, how unpredictable is the attraction between people, how fatal its current.

The old woman was interested only in giving, and if anyone tried to surprise her with something, she never smiled, she flew into a rage.

...mondtam, olyan botrány még nem volt, mint amilyen lesz a Parlamentben, ha én ott megjelenek, mit gondol, érdekel engem, mit tervezett, szőtt ott magában meg a barátaival, miközben én szerettem, ő meg nem szeretett? Szerettem őt. Hallja? Nem a fejit, a tudományát, mert az vitte el tőlem, az a nagyokos feje, tele tannal [...] Olyan bátor volt, életerős, olyan vidám, mint aki nem hal meg soha. És az a rengeteg könyv meg az a végtelen tudomány! Ki akarta azt mind megtanulni, feleljen?

Books formed the basis of my world, my unit of measure was the printed word,

In my student days, I detested Schopenhauer. Only later did I come to acknowledge the force of his idea that every relationship involving personal feeling laid one open to attack, and the more people I allowed to become close to me, the greater the number of ways in which I was vulnerable.

If there's no-one to show pleasure when you come home, then it's better not to live.

Writing isn’t an easy taskmaster. Sentences left unfinished never continue as well as they had begun. New ideas bend the main arch of the text, and it never again sits perfectly true. Anyway,

We looked after her. But she wanted something else, something more, I don’t know what. She didn’t even want the kitten, although I would have fed it too. That was the limit. Why did she never stop whining? If someone can’t be helped, then they don’t want help.

When the sands run out for someone, don’t stop them going. You can’t give them anything to replace life. Do you think I didn’t love Polett? That it meant nothing to me when she’d had enough and wanted out? It’s just that, as well as love, you also have to know how to kill. It won’t do you any harm to remember that. Ask your God — since you’re on such good terms with him — what Polett told him when they finally met.

Don’t think that when you come with the injection they won’t already know what’s going to happen. But you needn’t feel sorry for a single one. Being put down is more merciful than being cast out and going stray, with all its perils. Feed them full of meat before you finish them off. None of them are used to meat, and if you add a little sedative, you won’t even have to chase them.

A képek mindent tudnak, legjobban azt, amit leginkább próbálok elfelejteni, ami már nem álom. Hogy egyszer, életemben egyetlenegyszer nem az alvás agyvérszegénységében, hanem valóságban is feltárult énelőttem egy ajtó, amelyet akkor se nyitott volna ki, aki odabenn magányát és tehetetlen nyomorúságát védte, ha már ropog is feje fölött az égő háztető. Azt a zárat csak nekem állt hatalmamban megmozdítani: aki a kulcsot megforgatta, jobban hitt nekem, mint az Istennek, és én is azt hittem magamról abban a végzetes percben, isten vagyok, bölcs, megfontolt, jó és racionális. Tévedtünk mind a ketten, az is, aki bízott bennem, és én is, aki elbíztam magamat.

Emerence understood nothing of this. She rejected it. Like the leader of some primitive tribe she flew her standard — a sequinned evening dress — against the banner of the Lamb of God. The old woman opposed the church with an almost sixteenth-century fanaticism; not only the priesthood, but God himself and all the biblical characters, with the single exception of Joseph, whom she revered for his occupation: her own father had been a carpenter.

Bátran éltem idáig, remélem, meghalni is így fogok, bátran és hazugság nélkül, de ennek az a feltétele, hogy kimondjam: én öltem meg Emerencet. Ezen az se módosít, hogy nem elpusztítani akartam, hanem megmenteni.

Quando a casa nostra scoprì il funzionamento del magnetofono, capì che si potevano riascoltare parole e brani di musica, una volta me ne parlò, si domandò che cosa succederebbe se si potesse registrare la vita di un uomo, fissarla su un nastro per poter tornare indietro, fermarla, ripeterla a piacimento. Lei avrebbe accettato la sua, disse, così com'era e come sarebbe stata fino al giorno della morte, ma alla condizione di poter ripetere ciò che voleva.